Marketing

Some advice about networking and elevator pitches

Schedule A Free Closing Consult NOW http://tungle.me/bottomline

In todays world nobody trusts anything, right now banks don’t trust other banks and they damned sure don’t trust you.Democrats don’t trust Conservatives, Muslims don’t trust the US, basically distrust is running rampant in the world today making the peace process difficult and economic developement impossible.

There is little reason for your customers to’t trust you and frankly many business owners  haven’t done a great job of creating any reason for them to trust. After all, many of us treat customers like transactions, we take their money and let them leave with barely a thank you. No wonder they don’t trust us. (it’s like a one night stand, wham bam, ok I went to far)

In this post, I’m revealing some of the things I will be doing in my business to build “a reason to believe“. Now I’m under no illusions, I know it is going to take some work to create the “reason to believe” but in this tough times I need an edge and building trust is an additional edge. Here is what I plan to do.

1. Get testimonials and tell the whole story. This is an easy one to understand but more difficult to execute, I am going to literally ask every client to tell me honestly what they think about my services and as afraid as I am, I’m going to post the good, bad and ugly and here is why. We don’t do everything perfectly, so showing only the good doesn’t tell the whole story. I want my prospect to know the  the whole story,  good and bad and I hope that helps build “a reason to trust“. I am also going to fix the bad and see if I can get the same customer tl tell that story as well. You should too.
2. Guarantee – scares business owners. One of my clients is afraid to guarantee their services and thats a mistake. It’s a tough economy and my clients want to know that I stand behind what I do, so I am going to be working on an results based ironclad guarantee, no results no pay.
3. Show the Data and Demonstrate the Service. I’ve got the great numbers, I can prove my results, so I’m gonna show them. I;m going to demonstrate that I know what I’m doing and provide proff of the results.

Thats my start at showing proof and building trust. In my real estate business, we show proof of great rehabs on Youtube (as far as I know nobody does this) in my marketing consulting business we show results of conversions (actual leads generated) not click thru. Thats how I hope to create a “reason to believe“. What are you going to do in your business.

Almost every business blog I read has a post about the recession, despite the fact it is already a year old. So while I titled this article “Sales…..Recession”, these are really tips designed to keep you from experiencing a personal recession. I believe with proper planning you can avoid a recession in your business and thrive in tough times if you incorporate and automate these tips. So here we go

1. Design an automated strategy for asking for referrals. Now this is a system that needs to be automatic, most business owners don’t ask for referrals and don’t follow up on them when they get them because they don’t have a system. I’ve designed an automated system to ask customers for referrals when we complete a project. Basically, I use a survey to ask about our service and then I ASK for the multiple referrals. The referrals are automatically emailed to me and assigned to my to-do list. I do a bit more but thats the start, the key is an automated system.
2. Keep the funnel full of leads. This strategy allows you to run your business like a water faucet. When you need more money, you turn up the lead faucet and when you are at capacity you turn the faucet off. I have a ton of ways to keep the funnel full including newsletters, sales letters, postcards (notice they aren’t all internet based) and more and I use everyone. Again, the system needs to be automated, so it works without you having to think about it.

Thats a start, check back soon and I’ll post more. If you implement just these tips, your business will survive.

Dedicated to your success

I’ve been working thru some issues with a client about the services they offer. They  call themselves an “image consultants”. Now what does that mean. When you ask them it is very clear, “image consulting” is about helping companies look well in the media, but was that your first thought when you read the description of their business or like me did you immediately think that they helped people dress better.

That’s the point of “Clarity Trumps Persuasion”, the term “image consulting” alone is not clear, it is not easy to figure out what that means. This is also the case when you search for “image consultant” in Google.

Google returns a result page and the majority of paid  results are companies that help you dress or look better, mixed in with consulting, and branding ads” The organic results mostly returned “Image Consulting”, we help you look or dress better.

The problem is “image consultant” isn’t clear alone, It is only clear in some context. So when describing your business try to be clear. Remember that what is clear to you iis only clear in your context and MAY NOT be clear in the context of your client. Maybe your not an “Image Consultant” maybe you are a “Corporate Image Consultant” or a “Corporate Branding Consultant”, however you describe your business remember Clarity Trumps Persuasion.

Shouts out to MarketingExperiments.com for the tip

Dedicated to your success